Shruti Sharma and Chris Borges
Universities are among the most powerful engines of U.S. innovation, transforming federal research investments into scientific discoveries that underpin economic growth, technological leadership, and national security. Current law, via the Bayh-Dole Act, allows universities to patent inventions and license them to private companies, with royalties shared between the university and the inventors. In this way, universities are incentivized to accelerate the commercialization of federally funded discoveries made in their labs, fostering innovative start-ups, stimulating regional economic growth and jobs, and creating new competitive products and services.
Yet this fundamental driver of U.S. innovation is increasingly under strain. Already, federal support for basic research is in a decades-long decline. Now, the Department of Commerce is reportedly exploring a “patent tax” and new profit-sharing mechanisms for federally funded university research—proposals that have the potential to harm the very system that translates government investments in scientific research into lasting economic growth and competitive advantage.
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